Friends on the Move

Early 2020 saw Indigenous Rights Program Coordinator Jennifer Preston traveling to Maskwacis Cree territory (Treaty 6) for meetings related to ongoing partnership work. She and CFSC associate Paul Joffe travelled to northwest BC for a series of educational presentations on the UN Declaration and meetings, including with regard to the challenging situation in Wet’suwet’en territory. February had her in Ottawa for meetings with the Coalition for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples and federal government representatives.

In early March, she and staff Keira Mann were in Vancouver for the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ expert seminar on repatriation. Keira was a part of the team facilitating the seminar logistics, as CFSC partnered with the University of British Columbia on the event. Jennifer and Keira then joined CFSC’s Indigenous rights committee for its bi-annual meeting. Jennifer stayed in BC to present a Presidential Seminar for UBC Leaders about the UN Declaration and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She flew home in time to start working from home mid-March, where she remains!

Since the last edition of Quaker Concern CFSC staff Matt Legge gave two more presentations in Toronto and facilitated workshops in Peterborough and Kitchener about content covered in CFSC’s book Are We Done Fighting? Additional talks and workshops that were planned have had to be postponed indefinitely, but we are planning to offer a book study group online.